Until the fat boy sings

It’s 3am in the night. The hush of the night is loud. I’ve always loved the tranquility of this time of night. Except today. I’ve been tossing and turning for almost three hours now. I’m even scared. It’s a grievous state of insomnia I can’t seem to wrap my head around. I’m tired of shutting my eyes and repeatedly thinking, ”usingizi itakuja sasa” (Yes, I do think in Swahili. What language do you think in?) To hell with it. I wake up, boot up my laptop and look for something to bore me to death. Literally. I find nothing at all. I decide to check my Facebook, after all, it’s been too long.

Before I continue, I should probably give you a sneak peek of my life as a kid. Believe me, it all relates to this hell-sent insomnia story.

I was a ‘different’ nipper. Odd. A foot taller than all my classmates. Ten kilos heavier than them too. Point is, I was plus size…who am I kidding, I was fat. I was that kid whose sweater never exceeded the belly button point, my shirt always hang since it was too short to be tucked in and my shorts were always tight around the loin regions…and my ass too. You get the picture? Not that my parents were irresponsible and refused to buy me fitting uniform. They couldn’t afford it. They say it was too expensive to keep up with my rate of growth. I always laugh at this. Then they laugh too. A rich joke. One that never gets old.

This size came in handy in the kindergarten. Every child respected me. Or was it fear? Let’s not split hairs. But it always gets to a certain age with kids; where they’re just…for lack of a better term, sinister. That age where they are hyperactive. Where they fight with words rather than fists. Where it’s all about them and no one else. Where they can be cast in a horror film as a kid possessed by some demon and goes around killing men and eating their grey matter. (Mostly girls.) You know that age? Around 7 years. At this point, my ‘XXL’ size became less of a boon. Everyone mocked me. Calling me names. I seem to recall only teachers calling me by my official names. Hehe. Of course, these words hurt at the time. But they hurt most when the “cool kids” used them. Why?

You see, these cool ones represented everything I wasn’t. Everything I couldn’t be. Everything I wished I could be. So these matusis coming from them, cut deep. Like mungiki’s pangas. I lived part of my primary school life resenting them. Wishing them the worst. Until I grew up and realized we were just kids.

(You can wipe your tears now. Haha)

Back to this dark silent night. I’m in my room, my eyes still trying to adjust to the glaring ‘eye’ of the computer. There’s nothing much to look at on my home page. It’s mostly the gossip websites begging you to click on them with desperate captions like, “Where to touch her to make her scream your name (for men only).” I click on one that’s talking about one of our many socialites and her new show that’s coming to national TV. Hell, I even watch the show’s preview. I’m displeased with it. After it’s over, I’m bored again thinking of what or who to search. The best think about Facebook is its pioneer advantage; that only means everybody has an account. Out of nowhere, I type a random name. It’s not that random though. It’s the name of one of those that made my primary school my personal hell. There’s a lot of accounts by that name but I couldn’t miss hers. Her skin glowing radiantly as it used to eight years ago. Lady Puberty had worked her magic where she was required to and all her shed teeth had grown back. She was breathtaking. (I may or may have not had a crush on her back then). I really have no issue with her at this point of my life. I’ve let by-gones be by-gones. At least I think so. I click on her name. Her wall pops up immediately filling my whole screen. (I’m fully cognizant that this is stalking by the way) I scroll through her life hurriedly since I’d started feeling some weight on my eyelids. I could barely see. Then suddenly, something catches my eye and I stop at a photo with the caption “My bundle of joy” and the date tag “November 2011.” The weight disappears from my eyelids. My left eyeball starts to twitch vehemently.

Shit.

You can guess what she was holding. I’ll give you a hint…it’s not a shisha pipe. I’m now curious. I click on the photo, look through some comments and even ‘like’ it. That’s a lie. I didn’t ‘like’ it. I think, Is she happy? Is she proud she’s a baby momma before she even has her ID? I hope she wasn’t raped. Who’s the baby daddy?Does she consider this a blessing or otherwise? She must consider it a blessing. She has to. After all, children are a gift from God. I hover my cursor through the photo and a name pops up on the baby’s face. An acquainted name. A name that disrupts my stream of thought ‘cause of how long it’s not been thought of. Like a Muslim bursting through the doors of a church on a Sunday service. (I’ve never seen this but I’m imagining it to be inept) It’s one of the ‘cooler’ boys. Needless to say, he’s the proud fifteen year old father.

I want to feel sorry for them. I really do. But I can’t. I’m overwhelmed by a feeling of contentment. Yes, contentment. I even smile alone in the dark. Not that smile you give a mama whose bloomers you want to get into. No. A sly grin. Like that of Joker. I thought I was over them. I swear I did. Guess I was wrong. It’s not that I’m evil. The feeling just came and refused to pave a way for genuine sadness (We, human beings are hypocrites like that) Does this make me a vile human being?

How did they deal with the humiliation? They screwed up big time. Haha. I do hope they are nice parents though.

I didn’t sleep immediately. But I slept well that night. Like a baby. Like something good had happened.

Karma is a bitch, people. Only this time, she got pregnant.

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King is a mad writer on the loose. He is suspected to have lost his mind a few years after he was born. Since then, he has been writing his mind almost everywhere he can put his pen on. Someone – a government, a state, a police force, a parent, a teacher, a rabbi, a president, a sacco, a doctor, a deranged ex, a church, a therapist, or anyone with a bit of power bestowed upon them – should reprimand him and help him.